suffering to the hopes and consolations of Christian faith, even if, at
times, their zeal goes beyond "reasonable service," and although the
importance of a particular instrumentality may be exaggerated, and love
lose sight of its needful companion humility, and he that putteth on his
armor boast like him who layeth it off. Any movement, however irregular,
which indicates life, is better than the quiet of death. In the
overruling providence of God, the troubling may prepare the way for
healing. Some of us may have erred on one hand and some on the other,
and this shaking of the balance may adjust it.





JOHN WOOLMAN'S JOURNAL.

Originally published as an introduction to a reissue of the work.

To those who judge by the outward appearance, nothing is more difficult
of explanation than the strength of moral influence often exerted by
obscure and uneventful lives. Some great reform which lifts the world to
a higher level, some mighty change for which the ages have waited in
anxious expectancy, takes place before our eyes, and, in seeking to trace
it back to its origin, we are often surprised to find the initial link in
the chain of causes to be some comparatively obscure individual, the
divine commission and significance of whose life were scarcely understood
by his contemporaries, and perhaps not even by himself. The little one
has become a thousand; the handful of corn shakes like Lebanon. "The
kingdom of God cometh not by observation;" and the only solution of the
mystery is in the reflection that through the humble instrumentality